City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart’s detailed analysis of the Police Department’s budget, released last week (and exactly one week before she resigned to run for mayor) was an incredibly deep dive into the dark corners of how our city’s law enforcement agency operates. And it wasn’t pretty. Every page of the analysis is filled with findings of missteps, disorganization, failures and inefficiencies. All of those are so prevalent that some have suggested it is deliberate, a way to keep critics guessing so the status quo never has to change.
Here’s just one example: In 2019, under Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, the department launched a pilot of Operation Pinpoint, a boots-on-the-ground strategy to deploy officers in the most crime-infested neighborhoods to target the known few people in the community who are committing violent crimes. It proved so successful that it was deployed citywide, in 45 different “grids” throughout 2020.
This is not a strategy problem, or an innovation problem, or a problem of bad cops. This is a management problem. Which means it leads back to where the buck inevitably stops: Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.
Given the rise in violence, it’s safe to say the strategy has not worked. And reading Rhynhart’s analysis, it’s clear why: The decision to quickly expand Operation Pinpoint seems to have “greatly impaired” the department’s ability to implement it, in part because District captains were not adequately trained in how to change the way they have worked throughout their careers — and because they did not have the commitment to work the strategy. She goes on:
To our knowledge, a formal, independent evaluation of Operation Pinpoint has not been conducted, nor has PPD provided … any evaluations of Operation Pinpoint or indicated that one is underway … If a data tracking strategy were in place to allow for Operation Pinpoint to be credibly evaluated, Philadelphians could be informed about whether this program, or aspects of this program, are improving public safety, how it is responding to the needs of community, and whether there are observable unintended or unexpected consequences or community impacts that can be resolved through programmatic and strategic revisions or adaptations.
Additionally, while PPD has invested in database administration and data analytics support to assist in the development of customized pinpoint zone strategies, as well as analysts that can assist with the review and interpretation of the data, it does not appear that PPD developed a cohesive and comprehensive data strategy for the expansion of Operation Pinpoint …
It goes on, but you get the idea: poor coordination, lack of training, lack of buy-in, lack of commitment, and little to no data to back up how it’s going. This same basic narrative is repeated over and over throughout Rhynhart’s report, along with insane instances of inefficiencies: The department uses interoffice paper mail (in those brown envelopes with the tie-thingy) to send out department-wide messages and training info! Officers drive reports across town rather than sending them electronically! They use teletypes — what even is a teletype?! Something that takes an officer two hours every day to create. — to transmit information read aloud to officers at roll call every day!
This is not a strategy problem, or an innovation problem, or a problem of bad cops. This is a management problem. Which means it leads back to where the buck inevitably stops: Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.
Who is taking responsibility?
The Controller’s review, requested by City Council’s Police Reform Working Group at the end of 2020, provides the specific documentation for what we all know to be true: Our police department, no doubt made up of many smart, dedicated “hardworking, overworked” people (as Fraternal Order of Police president John McNesby said), is a disaster piled on top of a disaster.
The report is an important read for citizens in Philadelphia, both for the depth of the conclusions, amassed from interviews with dozens of department officials, and for the way it paints a picture of policing in the fifth-largest American city. The issue that got the most attention was one that seems especially painful: The time from a 911 call to an officer being dispatched is significantly longer in Black and Brown neighborhoods than White neighborhoods.
Both Outlaw and McNesby refuted the racist implications of that time difference, with the Commissioner saying the delay is more a result of the complexity and frequency of calls in high-crime neighborhoods that keeps officers from being able to respond to new emergency reports.
For the most part, though, Outlaw didn’t have much to say. Rhynhart opens the report with a letter applauding the PPD for its “cooperation with this process.” The 85-page-report, given first to the department before being released publicly, ends with a note from the commissioner saying it is “thorough” and then about five bulleted pages of minute responses to particular issues.
No one in the department’s leadership — not Outlaw, nor (of course) McNesby, nor even the Mayor — admitted what is obvious: This much-needed exposé is a wake-up call that things have to dramatically change. No one apologized to the people of Philadelphia for allowing things to fester so horribly, either.
Do we really have to wait for the next mayor before we can start down the road of reforming the PPD?
When Kenney first appointed Outlaw, in early 2020, she seemed like the right person for the moment. The first woman to lead the department (after a sexual harassment scandal led to the resignation of her predecessor, Richard Ross), Outlaw hailed from outside the insular world of Philly cops, a group that too often is first and foremost about themselves than the people they are serving. Six months later, during the civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, that assessment was called into question when, under her direction, police trapped and tear-gassed protesters on the Vine Street Expressway (among other atrocities).
Still, Outlaw brought with her the most modern ideas in American policing, improvements that she outlined in a 37-page plan in 2020 that we applauded here at The Citizen because of its forward-thinking. “I was hired not only to address violent crime, but also to transform the police department,” Outlaw told Citizen Co-founder Larry Platt at the time. “We didn’t want to create a strategic plan that sits on a shelf somewhere. We wanted a comprehensive plan that is a change management document, and that changes the culture of policing.”
Some of those ideas, including Active Bystander Training, intended to inculcate a culture of ethical policing, have reached thousands of police officers. Others have been slow to roll out, in part due to what the PPD would consider budget constraints. (Though as Rhynhart says in her opening letter, change doesn’t necessarily take more money. It takes using the resources better.)
Meanwhile, gun violence has continued to spike, even as the pandemic has waned, with the percentage of homicide arrests hovering down to 40 percent and non-fatal shooting arrests down to 19 percent. Police recruitment (like all government recruitment) is at an all-time low. Mayor Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner and Outlaw have at best a strained relationship, which makes a coordinated response impossible — even though evidence points to that being the only way to quickly stop the violence. And weaving through it all is a police department that is so poorly run it doesn’t even know how poorly it’s run.
In Outlaw’s defense, she did not create this mess. And as we saw from McNesby’s on-point-as-usual bluster, she inherited a police union that is intractable in defending bad cops and bad behavior, that fights to keep cops on the payroll who should be off the payroll, that defends cops who are bilking the system to get paid when they shouldn’t. “I understand the person who’s the author, who holds responsibility for this report, is looking to run for mayor, and that’s great,” McNesby said at a press conference a couple days after the report was released, all but ignoring the issues raised. (Also: It’s Rebecca Rhynhart; her name is on the top of the page.) “If you want to run for mayor, we wish you luck, but don’t do it on the backs of hardworking, overworked police officers in the city of Philadelphia.”
Every commissioner in recent memory has faced the same wall of opposition when it comes to cleaning up those in the department who are the poster boys for why Philadelphians distrust and fear cops. But that is not the issue Rhynhart was tasked with addressing, nor is it high among the issues she uncovered.
Rather, these are fundamental management issues akin to those at large corporations. Can you imagine this kind of chaos being allowed to fester at Amazon, or Comcast, or Google? American business is rife with examples of boards firing their executives because of poor performance, including this year, when the boards at several retailers, including the Gap, fired their CEOs because of low sales and mismanagement. Now, those same companies are increasingly talking about finding leaders from outside their industries to create new thinking.
In policing, too, there are examples of rethinking the norm. Take Camden: A state mandate forced that city about a decade ago to completely dismantle its police department and start from scratch. Officers were made to re-apply for their jobs, and those jobs themselves were reconfigured, with an emphasis on hiring officers who looked like the population they served, and who operated with a new level of community policing, data collection and — not inconsequentially — lower levels of crime and better outcomes.
In New Orleans this year, Mayor LaToya Cantrell hired two former New York City Police Department veterans to conduct an audit of her city’s police force, and has now hired one, the second-highest ranking officer of the NYPD until 2020, as a “consulting chief of operations.” His purview over the next six months will be helping to reorganize the NOPD, as part of a federal consent decree, to increase police and public safety, reassign officers as needed and change systems to become more efficient.
Neither of those departments, or corporate America, is a perfect match for Philadelphia. But they don’t have to be: What they share, and what is missing here, is bold thinking and bolder action to ensure the health and safety of the organization — and its customers.
What happens now?
Most of the recommendations Rhynhart does include in her report are about improving data and evaluating the effectiveness of systems and programs, including Operation Pinpoint; the use of the Heart and Lung benefit program, which an Inquirer report showed was being abused by officers; 911; record-keeping (including the preponderance of paper); and more deliberate strategizing.
She advocates for fundamentally changing the way the PPD determines staffing, which makes up more than 90 percent of the budget, both for budgetary and efficiency reasons. In essence, Rhynhart is calling for the department to do a version of zero-based budgeting district by district, which Josh Shapiro used to great cost-saving results when he was Montgomery County Commissioner and which Kenney promised to do — but didn’t — when he ran for mayor (when Rhynhart was part of his administration). That would mean starting from zero, determining what combination of officers and civilians are needed in each part of the department, and then staffing and budgeting accordingly.
This could help to address the staffing shortage as well, by shifting more work to (lower-cost) civilians, thereby freeing up officers for critical patrol work. Rhynhart points out that the percentage of civilians who work for the PPD right now is 12 percent, half of what’s typical for a city the size of Philadelphia. In this, the PPD could look to Baltimore, among other cities that are ramping up their civilian recruitment. Rhynhart also recommends using evidenced-based recruiting methods (which we wrote about here) to increase the numbers of Black and Brown officers, as well as women, who have a lower record of unnecessary stops and using lethal force.
The last section, on “Community Legitimacy,” addresses the sorts of accountability and community responsibility issues that have become the crux of calls for police reform over the last few years. It, too, includes recommendations about data and strategy, but also contains calls for a fundamental shift in how the PPD relates to its community, a term Rhynhart in her opening letter defines broadly: “it means residents and business owners, geographical groupings, including neighborhoods and / or police districts, racial and ethnic groups, religious communities.”
In this, too, the department can learn from other cities. The controller’s report suggests “continued investment in community trust, credibility, and legitimacy between PPD and communities it serves,” similar to the inroads made in Camden that has led to a nearly 100 percent solve rate for homicides. Among the recommendations in this section is the mildest in the report, to “consider mandating [Crisis Intervention Team] training for all officers” to help them diffuse situations in which a person is exhibiting mental health distress, as in the case of Walter Wallace, whom Philadelphia police shot and killed in 2020. Some states, including Washington, already mandate the training, which, when enacted thoughtfully, has proven to make better outcomes for both residents and officers.
The longest recommendation is one that should be a no-brainer for an entity whose mission is to serve and protect residents of its city: “Develop a sustainable, long-term commitment and process to hear from community members,” including through surveys, focus groups, interviews, formal and informal reporting — and data collection.
“This approach is a significant departure from PPD’s current approach but is the kind of organizational change that will enable the public feels truly heard and safe, while better enabling officers to do their jobs,” Rhynhart says in her opening letter. “It is my hope that this report offers PPD a path forward to reimagine policing to create a safer city. But it will require intentional, strategic guidance and support from the Office of the Mayor, the Managing Director’s Office and other city departments.”
The call to “reimagine policing” is right on, if not new. But unfortunately, there’s little evidence that the department will be able to do that without a fundamental culture change from the top down. And it’s here that Rhynhart stops short. She calls for cleaning up processes, without calling for the need to bring in new leadership.
Even a week after her report was released, no one is taking that kind of responsibility, or demanding that kind of fundamental change. Outlaw serves at the direction of Mayor Kenney, who has been a lame duck in attitude if not actuality for years now. Do we really have to wait for the next mayor before we can start down the road of reforming the PPD?
